STILL READ BOOKS?

Dennis Brown and Big Youth

I had second thoughts about posting reggae again so soon. I'm in the mist of reading Lloyd Bradley's excellent Bass Culture (previously published as This Is Reggae Music), for the third time. It rules. If you have any interest in reggae but don't know where to start, this is your book. Really, I've read a bunch of books on reggae and this one has more in it than all of the others put together. So I was in the mood. I figured I'd click on a song I hadn't heard and, depending how the mood progressed, take it from there. The system was rigged though. Big Youth and Dennis Brown on the same slab. I knew, absolutely, what that would do to my mood. Between the pull of my reggae records and the book, the computer loses.

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Listen:
Big Youth and Dennis Brown - Ride On Ride On mp3 at Marley Discography
Big Youth and Dennis Brown - Wild Goose Chase mp3 at Marley Discography
Visit:
Other reggae posts here This will come in handy if you read the book.

SCREW THE ROTATION

Well you lucky fuckin' rodents. I've had visitors the last three nights and I'm fresh out of blab. I just feel like watching a ballgame. So, you get these badass sides by Dennis Brown without the normal pissing in the wind. But really, these are good, mid-era, later than that photo above. That's a cool shot of him though, so baby-faced, still getting his sea legs and already burnin'... Fuck, rambling again  I'm out.

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Listen:
Dennis Brown - Revolution mp3 at ATumblr (?)
Dennis Brown - Money In My Pocket at Mr. Suave

ANALOG, YO

I heard an awful reggae cut a few nights ago. I'll have to track it down and post it here. It had all sorts of digital shit going on, dripping in Autotune. It fucking rattled me, it sounded so phony. So, to get it out of my head I made a bee-line to my safe harbor, the roots/DJ/lovers rock era roughly mid-seventies, early eighties. I ran into a few I hadn't heard, including a different version of Burning Spear's "Creation Rebel". Yee haw. I'll post that shitty song later.

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Listen:
Big Youth - 6 Dead 19 Gone To Jail mp3 at Wailers Discography
Burning Spear - Creation Rebel mp3 at Wailers Discography
Gregory Isaacs - Tide Is High mp3 at Wailers Discography
Dennis Brown - No More Will I Roam mp3 at Wailers Discography

THE KID SINGER

If you think Dennis Brown looks young in that photo, he was even younger, twelve years old, when he cut "No Man Is An Island" at Studio One. That's nuts. And he was singing for Byron Lee and the Dragonaires before that. He had a good long career, roughly thirty years, before he died in 1999 at age 42, after years of coke use.

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Listen:
Dennis Brown - No Man Is An Island (streaming) at YouTube 1969
Dennis Brown - Rain Drops Keep Falling On My Head mp3 at ATumblr 1970
Dennis Brown - Silhouettes mp3 at ATumblr 1975
Dennis Brown - Man Next Door mp3 at East African Tube 1977

RIDDIM DEPOT. YEAH, WE GOT THAT.

Garret Mimms's "A Quiet Place" was just a slow tempo soul song when it was released in 1964, making it to #78 in the charts. Hardly a smash hit. But when it crossed the water over to Jamaica, boy, did it ever get legs. The Paragons recorded it at Duke Reid's in 1968, and the riddim (rhythm) that it was laid over has been mined for the past four decades. Usually referred to as the "Man Next Door" riddim, it's been used by U Roy, Doctor Alimatado, and I Roy, to toast over, and the song itself, with the riddim (as opposed to Simms's original version), has been covered by everybody from Horace Andy and Dennis Brown to the Slits. My personal favorite (which you should rightly not give a shit about) is Dr. Alimantado's version, "Poison Flour", because he incorporates Horace Andy's vocal tracks as well as the riddim, and, of course, his own spouting off . He must have like the song, because he used it twice, as did U Roy, John Holt (solo and with the Paragons), and Horace Andy (solo, with the Paragons, and with Massive Attack). And you just know the session musicians that came up with the riddim probably got the paid for the session, but squat for coming up with the very part of it that has proved so enduring. I've no clue if you can be paid royalties for just playing a song differently, but that opens up the biggest can of worms in reggae, who did what? It's like a damn free for all over there.

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Songs:
Garnet Simms - A Quite Place (streaming at YouTube
The Paragons - A Quiet Place mp3 at Essentially Eclectic
Horace Andy - Man Next Door (streaming) at YouTube With dub version.
Dr. Alimantado - Poison Flour mp3 at Le Blog de la Grande Chose
I Roy- Noisy Place (streaming) at YouTube
U Roy - Peace and Love In the Ghetto (streaming) at YouTube
Dennis Brown - Man Next Door mp3 at Essential Eclectic
The Slits - Man Next Door (live) mp3 at Essentially Eclectic

DENNIS BROWN...DENNIS BROWN?

I ran into that photo above, of a young Dennis Brown, and thought it cool.  Then, I gulped, He's been sorely overlooked here, and I am going to remedy that shit right now.  If for no other reason that the amount of spins his "Money In My Pocket/Sitting and Watching" 12" got at Front Street.

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Listen:
Dennis Brown - No Man Is An Island mp3 at DJ No DJ
Dennis Brown - Silhouettes mp3 at Art Decade